


I Can't

by friendlyneighborhoodfairy



Series: FNF/Snow's Nonbinary Month fics 2018 [3]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Chinese Food, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Frozen (2013) References, Genderqueer Character, Healthy Relationships, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Other, Past Abuse, book clubs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 17:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15586686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlyneighborhoodfairy/pseuds/friendlyneighborhoodfairy
Summary: (Nonbinary Month #3) Lucy has baggage about alternative gender that she just can't seem to get past. As her bff, Freed wants to see her happy, but he also hates it when she cries. {Fraxus and Lelu with gender questioning.}





	I Can't

**Author's Note:**

> Fairy Tail + genderqueer.
> 
> This one is…tougher. Genderqueer folks can be abusive just like others.

"I can't," Lucy said. "I just can't, Freed."

Lucy's face was red; he could see frustration, fear, and shame at war there—even anger, though he knew it wasn't at him.

"Darling, I think you can," he said. "But only if you want to."

As Lucy's head drooped, he sighed and put a hand on their—on her—shoulder.

"Wouldn't using the right pronoun…make you feel better?" he asked.

" 'They' will always be  _them,_ " Lucy said, voice harsh and hollow. "I don't ever want to be reminded of them, let alone be like them."

"I'm sorry for challenging you," Freed said, knowing when he'd pushed enough. "I hate seeing you all…contorted around your identity. I hate seeing you hurting so much."

"Thanks," Lucy smiled at him. "You're the best kind of friend, and it's okay—I know you're just trying to take care of me. And I'm not hurting, Freed."

That, he knew, was a lie. Plainer than anything else on Lucy's face was how much pain she was in.

Sighing, he asked, "When's Lev getting back?"

"Two days." Lucy's expression gained the hint of a smile. "Book club just isn't the same without her."

"Book club with just you is still wonderful," Freed said. "But  _you_  are happier with your girlfriend around."

Lucy grinned. "Wouldn't anyone be?"

Freed's soft smile admitted he knew exactly what Lucy meant.

Rising, he stretched his legs and helped himself to more tea—the women's flat had long since become a second home to him. He'd helped the pair move here, as well as into their last place, back when the two first moved in together. In fact, he took partial responsibility for them dating.

Having moved past their distressing talk of gender, Freed was surprised when Lucy called, "What got you thinking about pronouns?"

"The book," he said. "I know it's not explicit, but the Jane character clearly has issues with her gender identity."

Lucy looked intrigued.

"What makes you say that?"

"Her behavior." Leaning in the doorframe, he sipped his tea. "Going to the cabaret, and the way she watches the women… I know it's a book about 1800s lesbians, but Jane isn't the same as the protagonist. Isobelle wears men's attire but strips out of it as soon as she's with a woman; she wants to be a woman loving another woman. But Jane… When she finds a pretty woman, she becomes even more masculine. She hates it that time when her date realizes she's not a man. I think in our world, Jane would be trans or at least gender-non-conforming."

"She reminds me," Lucy said slowly, "of Algernon from that book a few months ago. What you said about watching women: at the jazz club, he watches the singer just as his friends do, but he wants to  _be_  her, not be  _with_ her. It's about...finding in her a definition for who he is."

"Right!" Freed said. "I think Jane is the same way. She hopes to contrast herself against other women's femininity to define herself as a masculine person."

"They had awfully strict gender roles," Lucy said sadly. "Back then, and for so much of history… I know history is told by the straight white male conquerors, but even though there were a lot more smart, strong, empowered queers and women and brown folks, it was hard and people were invisible."

"Yeah," he said. "It's  _still_  hard."

"Not as much."

Freed paused. He didn't want to upset her again. But she didn't appear to be internalizing this conversation.

"I disagree," he said. "I think gender roles are just as restrictive. Do you know what Cana told me the other day? She told me she's a strong woman and so she needs a hypermasculine boyfriend to make up for it. Not only does that suck for her—I suspect that even with the most masc boyfriend, she would end up forcing herself to be more feminine; it also puts pressure on men to be hypermasculine. When very few are. Maybe none. I have a hard time believing any human is legitimately hypermasculine—our definition of masculinity has become so messed-up and inhuman…"

"You found one," Lucy teased. "Have you seen your boyfriend?"

"Laxus? Hypermasculine my ass," Freed laughed. "He cries at every movie we watch. He cried watching  _Captain America: Civil War._ "

"That's kind of adorable."

"It's totally adorable. And he's not the least ashamed of it. Not to mention he's far more touchy-feely than masc folks are 'supposed' to be. And he's…well, he's just not like that. Stiff, repressed, violent. He doesn't care what people think of him—not after everything that happened. That's why I fell in love with him."

"Okay, you're right, I'm sorry. He's a lot more than muscles."

"Not saying I dislike his looks," Freed added with a smile.

"Of course not." Lucy grinned. "So you're saying you think gender roles are just as repressive today as ever?"

"I think the oppression has just gone underground. We've been told we've been given our rights and privileges as queer folk, as people of color, as women, et cetera. But the actual attitudes have only changed shape. The 70s, for example, granted women sexual freedom, but we restrict women's access to birth control and STI-prevention and we label any woman who dares enjoy herself as a slut. Feminists back then won the key to unlock the door, but if you dare walk through it, you'll come away bruised and bloody."

"Ugh, that sort of shit makes me so angry," Lucy growled. "Society appeases the masses, makes us think we're getting what we want, but really…they're just putting up different walls to block us. Like the fucking erasure of Marsha and Sylvia and every other LGBTQ person who doesn't look like a white, cisgender 'normal' person that the cishets approve of."

Freed inhaled sharply in shared anger. "Truth."

He also hated the idea that activism wouldn't get people anywhere.

"At the same time…we've made  _some_  headway," he added. "The slut label isn't as heavy and impactful on one's life as it used to be. And not everyone will label a woman that way. The more women walk through the door, the more it'll be normalized and the less women will face repercussions for sleeping around."

"But we can't just  _be,_  Freed." Lucy looked up at him from the couch, face sincere and anguished. "None of us, outside the norm…we live our lives fighting. We can't just live."

"No. Not yet."

She pulled in on herself, back straight and arms tight around her middle.

"I feel like Algernon," she muttered.

Buzzing, Freed tilted his head. It was all Lucy needed to go on.

"I feel like I look in on women as something that's not me, but I sort of want to be. I wish I could wear the pretty dresses and sparkles and frilliness. And then I remember that I can—that society  _wants_  me to, values me more highly when I do. And then suddenly," Lucy said, voice growing stronger, "I don't want to be feminine anymore. Suddenly, I hate it. I hate all the pretty, lacy, sparkly things. I despise them because they're just…a cage now, when I look at the world as someone born female. When femininity is expected of me, suddenly I want to be anything else."

"Do you really?" he asked. "Want to be anything else?"

He was stiff against the doorjam, intent and focused, knowing they were on the edge of new truths. Approaching something which he could tell Lucy had never said aloud before.

"No," she said in a tiny voice. "I don't. I want to be feminine…and more."

There it was.

She'd never given him a word. Just said things—usually late at night when they were tired and facades came down; about how she didn't feel like a woman; about how she wasn't 'feminine,' how it didn't fit, made her uncomfortable. How being called 'Miz' made her uncomfortable.

But she'd never spoken a label for what she felt.

"What kind of more?" he asked softly.

"Anything. I just don't want to be what  _They_  want me to be. Whoever  _They_  are. You know what I mean. I don't want to be their concept of a woman. I don't want to be their anything. I want to be…"

Lucy inhaled and ran her hands over her face.

"I don't know what I want to be, Freed."

 _Are you sure you don't know?_  He wanted to say it. It was on the tip of his tongue. But she was one of his best friends, and he knew how much that question would hurt her, and even if she needed to hear it, he just couldn't bear to be the one to ask.

"I wish," she sniffed, "they hadn't taken it from me."

Her sniffle made him jerk. Striding over, he sat beside her, reached for her, and rubbed her back.

"I wish they hadn't been an asshole," she said. "I wish I hadn't dated them. I wish they hadn't done everything they did, and I wish I hadn't let them. I wish a lot of things." Lucy wiped her eyes. "But one of the biggest: I wish they hadn't taken 'genderqueer' and twisted it and soiled it and made it something I don't ever, ever want to be."

"Oh, Lu." He put an arm around her and drew her close. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Don't say that. You h-helped me get away," she swallowed. "You gave me…a fucking place to  _stay,_  Freed. You don't ever have to be sorry. You're the reason I was able to leave."

"I know, darling," he kissed her hair, "but I'm still sorry it all happened. I wish I could've…done more."

Shoulders shaking, Lucy put her face in her hands and leaned into him, wet sounds muffled in her palms. A tear slid down Freed's cheek.

"I'm sorry they took everything, Lu. I'm sorry they took this. But that doesn't mean you can't take it back."

"I can't," she hiccoughed, "I just can't. That pronoun is theirs. They held that over me so many times. How awfully the world treated them for being a  _them._  How we were going to go out in public anyway and be our obviously queer selves, because fuck them all. How I needed to protect them and shield them from the comments and stares, and if I didn't, if they felt hurt at all, it was all my fault and I was a terrible partner.

"How as a mere lesbian I could never possibly understand everything they'd been through. I wasn't being understanding, and I needed to be more patient and loving because they were fragile." She spat the words. "I wasn't allowed to feel hurt,  _ever._  I wasn't allowed to be insulted. I wasn't allowed to find fault with them. Any bad encounter in my day, they would suddenly have a problem ten times bigger that trumped mine and forced me to backburner my pain.

"It fucking sucked, and I don't think I'll ever get over it, even with Levy, even with my life so amazing like it is now. Geezes, sometimes I still think about how I'll never get my grandma's knit comforter back, or—or my uni sweatshirt. Or Nekochan. I'll never f-fucking see Nekochan again. I  _loved_ that cat. She was the best. Even when I finally left, I lost. They made sure that I never, ever won. Ever."

Body shaking, Lucy curled into his side, face pressed into her knees, contorted so tightly that her arms shook and her knuckles turned white. Holding her, Freed rocked back and forth. He hated feeling her cries jerking her body, hated that there was nothing he could say that would make it better.

He couldn't even say she'd gotten away with her skin, because she'd shown up on his doorstep with her cheek bruised purple and her lip bleeding. She never mentioned that part, couldn't talk about it—and Freed respected that, but Laxus had heard Freed vent many times, because he  _did_  need to talk about it, to express the anger which, later that night, had resulted in him putting a hole through their bedroom wall.

"It's isn't fair," Lucy whispered, shuddering. "It just isn't fair."

It wasn't.

Laxus had used his size for good and gone back to Lucy's shared flat to get her things—essentials like her computer. They all agreed Lucy should not go, even with him and Freed for protection. Her ex had made things so difficult they could only get the one load, and in the end, Lucy was left with three boxes of possessions.

The days after had been damage control. Freed took the week off. Lucy's name wasn't on the lease (another way her partner sought to control her), thank gods, but the bitch had gone and done the unthinkable and lost Lucy her job.

She'd had nothing. She'd had to start over from zero.

It had led to now: Lucy clerking at law firm for fantastic pay and living with her amazing girlfriend who loved her so much and didn't cut her off from her friends or cajole her into sex when she didn't want to. (Gods, Freed had hated that bastard. He still did. There were some things he didn't think he needed to forgive.) Her life now was happy and heading in good directions. But back then, it had felt like the beginning of the end. Back then, Freed lived in fear of Lucy hurting herself, or her ex coming while he and Laxus were at work and…

They'd all lived in fear for a long time.

And so Freed understood if the label or pronouns that fit Lucy best made her deeply anxious. Lu had terrible associations, and he wouldn't underestimate the psychological power of that. He didn't like it, but he understood.

He also suspected that Lucy's ex had gaslighted her into suppressing much of her genderqueerness. Perhaps why she was only now starting to reemerge into those traits of hers, and why it shook her so deeply when she did.

Lucy was still crying in his lap, now in the deep, wrenching sobs that would last a long, long time. As he pulled her into a more comfortable position, he kissed her head and murmured that it would be alright.

It would be. But it was also okay if she didn't believe that right now. He would keep saying it. That's what you did for those you loved.

Retrieving his phone from the table, Freed texted Laxus.

* * *

 

Sometime later, there was a knock at the door. Lucy's heart sped up, the fear right there within her reach. Still so close, after so many years.

But she was safe here.

In her exhausted post-cry state, she made a small sound of confusion against Freed's shoulder.

"Ah. Just a minute," Freed said, disentangling from her.

He returned a moment later with a hulking and familiar figure.

"Dinner's here," Freed said.

"H-Hey Laxus," Lucy whispered, waving feebly.

"Hey." He gave her a kind smile. "You still like General Tso's chicken, right?"

She sighed contentedly. "You're the best."

"Lu," Freed called from the kitchen, "chopsticks or fork?"

"Spoon. I can't use chopsticks in this state."

While Freed served self and boyfriend, Laxus brought Lucy's plate over and sat across from her on the sofa.

"You doing okay?"

"I'll survive." She gave him a wet and grateful smile. "Did he tell you the movie?"

"Just that there would be one."

"I picked Frozen," she said. "Predictably."

He grinned. "The Lucy classic."

This actually got a little laugh out of her. She began to eat, and soon the three of them were perched on her sofa with tea and cheap Chinese food, the quiet sounds of satiating hunger filling the room.

"I texted Levy," Freed said, grabbing the TV remote. "By the way."

"Thanks."

"She said to tell you she loves you very much and will be home soon."

A tiny bit of warmth returned to her. Oh Lev. "She's the best."

"Best thing that ever came out of Freed's reading habit is your relationship," Laxus said.

Freed swatted him before settling more comfortably between them, the three of them squeezed together in warmth and closeness.

"I like this," Lucy sighed as the opening music began to roll.

During  _Love is an Open Door,_  to which Freed hummed along, Laxus took Lucy's empty plate and passed her the other thing he'd brought. Chocolate. She shot him a thumbs-up and curled closer to Freed's side.

A shrill ring caused the frantic scramble for the remote. They were halfway through  _Let It Go_  and Lucy was crying again as she always did (it was a song about coming out, after all, wasn't it?), as was Laxus. Finally finding the pause button, Freed grabbed his phone and announced, "It's Levy," before picking up. "Hello?"

Watching this one-sided conversation with eager eyes, Lucy leaned closer and closer the longer it took, until she was staring at him with comically large eyes. Looking over, he cracked up.

"Sorry, Levy—I need to hand the phone to your girlfriend or I'm going to get skinned."

Beaming, Lucy snatched the proffered device.

"Lev?"

"Hullo, beautiful. Are you doing okay?"

The voice on the other end was the best thing Lucy had heard. It almost launched her right back into crying.

"Yeah," she said automatically. "No. I feel like shit. I miss you."

"I miss you too," Levy said longingly. "The conference is big-ass boring."

"I thought you liked big asses?"

There was a giggle-snort. "The one I like isn't here with me."

Lucy bit her lip, somber in spite of herself. "I wish."

"Me too. Love…if you need anything, you just have to ask. You know that, right?"

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"What on earth for? Crying shit out is healthy. I just wish I were there to cry with you."

That got a watery laugh.

"You would, too. It's what I love about you." Lucy sighed. "Come home soon, Lev. I hate sleeping without you."

"Seconded. The bed is so big."

When they ended the call, Lucy handed the phone back with regret.

"She shouldn't be allowed to go on business trips," she grumbled.

"Nobody should," Laxus called from the kitchen, where he was making more tea. "It's criminal to partners."

Freed rolled his eyes. "You act like I  _like_ it."

"I know you don't, but your boss sure seems to. Are you sure she's not homophobic? She seems awfully set on keeping us apart."

"We haven't had date night in a month," Freed told Lucy mournfully. "I keep getting called in for overnights."

"I thought the point of working with dead languages was that you didn't have to do things like that?"

"Normally it is. There's no such thing as a life-threatening translation emergency when everyone who spoke the language has been dead thousands of years. But new pieces keep coming in and she seems to think the museum will be upset if we have a piece for more than twenty-four hours without at least identifying the language and subject matter."

"You're too fucking smart," Laxus muttered, returning to the sofa.

"Are you saying that's a problem?" Freed laughed.

Grinning at him, Laxus gave a teasing shrug.

"Oh, boo. I'm playing the movie now," Freed retorted.

Their banter was so comfortable. So familiar. Lucy felt like she could sink into it and find home there.

When at last ice-loving sisters were reunited and all bad guys vanquished, Freed turned off the TV and Lucy put her head on his shoulder.

"Fuck, how late is it?" she yawned.

Laxus glanced at his watch. "Nine."

"I'm so tired."

"Me too," Freed admitted.

They rose to clean up dinner, all three of them bumping elbows comfortably in the small space. The silence was thoughtful, Lucy trying to figure out whether to put her request to them or not. She needed to be around people.

"Guys," Lucy said slowly as she put the last plate in the dishwasher. "Can I…come home with you? Is that alright?"

"Absolutely," Laxus said immediately.

"Levy already told me to offer," Freed said. "So you wouldn't have to be alone."

Hugging him close, Lucy murmured, "Thank you. So much. For everything."

"Always."

She grabbed a few things and they crammed into Laxus's tiny Fiesta for the short trip to the Justine-Dreyar flat.

The place always smelled clean and like comfort to Lucy. As Laxus pulled out the sofa bed, she turned to Freed and pulled him into another tight, long embrace.

"Thanks for everything you said," she said.

"I meant every word. We all love you however you are. However you look, however you feel. We really do love you."

Lucy sniffed. "Thanks. And about the pronouns… I think…you might be right. I don't know. I just hate thinking about it. I know that's not going to help me find an answer. I just don't know anything."

"You don't have to know," Laxus said. "It's okay not to. Or to not want to."

Pulling back, Lucy nodded and wiped her face.

"I do want to. But I think maybe I want to deal with my other stuff first? I know you won't like this," she looked at Freed, "but having you guys makes it easier for me to  _not_ deal with gender right now. Because you guys just see me as me, I don't feel like I'm pretending or being forced into something I don't fit."

"I'm  _glad_  to hear that," Freed protested. "It's good you feel comfortable enough to start learning to trust again. I think that's a totally legitimate thing to tackle first—you do not have to address all your issues at once. Use us as your safe space however long or often you need."

Lucy looked between them for a quiet, gasping moment, face filling with emotion.

"I don't deserve you guys," she said, reeling Freed back in again, feeling as if she might fall over without him. She motioned Laxus in too. The pair were family.

"This is what friends do," Freed said. "You don't have to deserve us. That's the point."

Arms around both of them, Laxus nodded agreement.

"It's why friendship was invented," he said. "So we can be little shits sometimes."

"Laxus," Freed said flatly.

But Lucy and Laxus were laughing.

"Being a shit," she said, " _or_ being a burden. And a soggy mess."

"Yup." Laxus patted her head. "But Freed's right. Not being allowed to be there for you would feel wrong for us. So thank you for letting us in."

Lucy started crying again, but this time it was happy. They held her the whole time.

**Author's Note:**

> I love the idea of Freed, Levy, and Lucy being buddies. The final chapters of the manga where the three of them raid the guild library together in order to save their Dragon Slayers…quintessential.
> 
> Another chapter will be coming…at some point. Levy has a surprise for her partner. ^^


End file.
